NBA Ruling a Disgrace

I’m disgusted by the ruling from the NBA suspending players for the meelee in Detriot Friday night.

Second, we must re-examine the adequacy of our current security procedures in Detroit and our other 28 arenas.

The key word in the above paragraph is “second.” Providing and executing security is the responsibility of the club owner. That should have been first.

But first they threw the players down the stairs, as those were the unfortunate American citizens being followed by the cameras, making said owners look bad. Ron Artest has a shakey image so coming down hard on him isn’t too big a PR hit, nationally. The Pacers are a small market team, so again, small PR hit. It’s slick and despicable.

Those players are American citizens. They should be given the benefit of the doubt. They were put in an extremely vulnerable position.

The Detroit Pistons’ organization sold an inappropriate amount alchohol to certain fans. Maybe they should donate the evenings beer profits to a charitable organization and make a public apology.

I was at a WWE Raw event (not entirely of my own volition, but that’s another story) and Conseco Fieldhouse wisely shut down the alchohol sales partway through the event. The NBA club organizations could stand to take a lesson.

3 Comments on “NBA Ruling a Disgrace”

Are you retarded? You should just be thankful Stephen Jackson didn’t get the full season suspension he deserved. And Jermaine O’Neal will have forgotten all about his 25 game suspension as he is watching the season unfold from a prison cell after being charged with aggravated assault for trying to kill that little Mexican in the Pistons jersey. Contrary to what the sports commentators are saying, the players are not the defenders of the court, the security guards are, and thereforeneither Artest nor O’neal had any right to attack a fan who ends up on the court. Especially when there is a riot in the stands that forces fans to leave the stands for self-preservation.

Artest and Jackson deserved what they got, I think. I’m not so sure about O’Neal; being hit with a chair doesn’t exactly promote rational behavior, though I do thing O’Neal overreacted. Regardless, the Pistons got off light with that decision. We’ll see if the fans consider this tactic for eliminating competition to be a success, and decide to try it again.

I suppose when fans do outrageous things, that’s OK, but when players do, it’s not. I suppose an asymmetric response from the NBA (gutting the Pacers roster, while giving the Pistons player who started everything a relative slap on the wrist) is also OK.

Thanks for that insight. I had been warming to the NBA again after the disillusionment of the Bulls/Jordan situation; I suppose I should stop wasting my time.

I’d have to agree that this sets a bad precedent, especially considering the lightweight sentences received by the Pistons organization (not just the players… even considering that by throwing a wristband at Artest and then turning to the crowd and raising his hands, Wallace essentially gave a nonvocal– whether meant or not– cue for others to throw items.) I don’t necessarily think that the suspensions are heavily out of line– except possibly in JO’s case– but the inequality of them is absurd and sets a bad precedent.

While I hope it doesn’t come to it, all of a sudden it appears that a scary precedent could exits: if the fans can goad a playoff team’s ‘hothead’ to going into the stands, rather than pointing to security and getting the idiot who tossed something on him out of there, they can all of a sudden get the other team’s star players suspended with little to no loss to themselves. Afraid of meeting Memphis in the playoffs? Goad Bonzi Wells. Afraid of meeting Detroit? Goad Rasheed Wallace. Afraid of meeting someone? Toss something and hope to get one of their team’s players into the stands, where the fans will almost always stand up for one another against the ‘crazed maniac’. You get off with a slap on the wrist, and they get their team gutted.